"May I come in?" Jeff visibly contemplated his options and Monica was almost certain that he would slam the door in her face. Yet, with a blank expression, he silently motioned for her to enter Elizabeth's home.

"Lizzie's at work. She asked me to watch the boys," Jeff explained as he settled Cameron near the play table where the little boy immediately reached for the coloured pencils with which he started to doodle. Jake sat up in the crib in the corner of the room, his eyes wide and curious as the unfamiliar face entered his home. Monica admired the two children with a longing smile.

"I - - uh," she carefully manoeuvred around the children's toys littered around their feet. "I owe you an apology. I shouldn't have dismissed you the other day." Monica had considered herself fortunate not to accidentally bump into him at the hospital since but now she wondered whether that would have been preferable to this: Jeff maintained his silent stoicism which only escalated her sense of discomfort. "I really haven't been a very pleasant person to be around lately. I took my frustration out on you and you didn't deserve that, I'm sorry."

"Apology accepted," he replied cordially. A word of advice from Bobbie had healed his bruised ego and rationalised Monica's reluctance to let anyone in. Monica was, if nothing else, a creature of habit and the tendency to isolate from those who loved her when in pain was one habit she had yet to outgrow.

Monica forced a hesitant smile in the hopes that he would concede a little more. "I hope we can remain - - friends?"

"I think we've moved beyond friendship," Jeff frankly remarked, in no mood to soothe her wounds. "Or so I'd told myself, at least." He busied himself around the kitchen, "Maybe the truth is we hadn't even reached that point." His words seemed cryptic and Monica made no effort to hide her confusion. "I apologise if you feel I took advantage of you." He overrode her open-mouthed attempt to object, "I don't want you to worry about our relationship from a professional standpoint. As far as I'm concerned, this is purely platonic. If and when we need to consult on patients, we will, and I will do my level best not to bother you outside of the hospital." Jeff delivered a hearty smile, "Professional to a fault, Scout's honour."


"Sorry I'm late," Elizabeth hurried in the front door as Jeff returned downstairs. She had missed bedtime for the third time that week, thanks to the hospital's unfortunate tendency to lose staff quicker than they hired them. "Did the boys settle okay?" Cameron and Jake were too young to verbalise their emotional turbulence but it was displayed by their fussiness at every meal, or reluctance to sleep in their mother's absence.

"A-ok," Jeff confirmed with a military style salute. Elizabeth breathed with an audible sense of relief. Her father had sweet-talked the Chief of Staff into uncharacteristic lenience and ensured their schedules at the hospital meant the boys were permitted some sense of familiar routine and spent less time in the daycare centre or at home with babysitters.

"I thought I saw Monica Quartermaine's car leave here," Elizabeth draped her coat over the back of the standalone chair as her father busied himself with the colossal pile of plates and cutlery in the kitchen.

"You did," he replied, standoffish. To say he was unsatisfied by the latest development was an understatement, yet he understood Monica's natural resistance to the possibility of love and a future with anyone but Alan.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Elizabeth matched his air of discomfort. Despite the impressive size of the hospital, any tension between staff members did not fall unnoticed and spread between the wards like a rampant disease which meant almost everyone was aware of an altercation between the two senior doctors.

Jeff threw a dish towel over his shoulder. "It's complicated, Lizzie. There's a lot of history between the two of us and I - - crossed the line," he reluctantly admitted. The inference wasn't subtle and Elizabeth bit her bottom lip with the newfound awareness that her father had truly moved on from decades of commitment to her mother. "I don't know. I suppose, with the divorce pending, I started to wonder - - Monica was the first woman I married, the first woman I ever loved. It's hard not to contemplate the what-if's." An unidentified emotion flickered across Elizabeth's features and he automatically perceived it as rejection. "That doesn't mean I love you or your sister any less, it's just a fact of life."

"I understand," Elizabeth's shoulders naturally narrowed as they raised to her ears in physical and emotional upheaval. "I love my boys, they're my world, but I felt the same way when Lucky and I separated. All I could think about was this other life that could have been mine."

"Does that other life involve Jason Morgan?" Elizabeth's eyes widened, deer-like. Her father had become a Port Charles resident for mere months and already perceived Jason's presence in her life. "You seem surprised. You think I don't notice him hiding in the shadows, sneaking in and out of this house?" She visibly baulked and found herself transported back to her days as an adolescent, scolded for her mischief. "Lizzie, you know first-hand that I have never been the kind of parent to interfere in my children's affairs," he readily confessed. "But I'm also not one to bite my tongue and I think you know that, too." Elizabeth braced herself for a vicious attack upon Jason's character and the risk any connection put her in. "He's trouble. I've been in Port Charles all of five minutes and already witnessed the chaos his lifestyle brings."

"Jason is one of my dearest friends. He always has and always will protect me," Elizabeth bluntly countered her father's concern.

"The only way for him to protect you and the boys is to stay far away, which prompts the question why he can't seem to." Jeff's voice softened in sympathy for the obvious answer to his question. The uncertainty of Jake's paternity had travelled oceans, thanks to Audrey who did her best to maintain his parental bond with Elizabeth, and while they had been led to believe that Lucky was indeed the father, Jeff wondered whether it wasn't all an elaborate scheme. "Is he Jake's father?"